Maybe This Time Read online

  Table of Contents

  Other Vicki Hinze Titles from Bell Bridge Books

  Maybe This Time

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  Thirty-eight

  About Vicki Hinze

  Promo age

  “[Vicki Hinze’s] ingenious concept of time and time-travel will captivate readers who crave the unusual, intelligent, and fresh approach to an old idea. [Hinze] brings a refreshing, clever and intriguing concepts to readers and then adds three enthralling romances to craft an unforgettable reading experience.”

  —RT BookClub

  ———

  They’ve lost each other time and again.

  Now is their last chance.

  A lonely eternity awaits New Orleans computer analyst Kevan Buchanan and businesswoman Alyssa Cameron unless they can overcome the problems that kept them apart in their past lives.

  The amulet at his neck vibrated.

  Kevan Buchannan vacillated, turned off his computer, then stared at its blank screen. Muted sounds drifted in through his office window; a blues band belting out jazz, people laughing and dancing in the French Quarter street below. Though tempted to kick back and relax, he couldn’t. Soon he’d be “gifted” with yet another glimpse of the future, a gift natural to him . . . frightening to others.

  But not to Alyssa.

  Again the amulet vibrated at the hollow of his throat. After months of waiting and wondering

  Surrounded by darkness, he stood alone. A slight wind ruffled his hair and breezed lazily across his skin. On the horizon, light flickered and gnarled fingers of mist swirled together, thickening to fog and descending on him.

  The fog parted, revealing the bumpy stone path. He walked down to its end. When the fog merged into a solid wall in front of him, he stopped and waited, feeling hollow, empty, and alone–emotions he wouldn’t have recognized before Alyssa came into his life. He’d loved her. He still loved her. He always would.

  An uneasy shiver crept up his spine. A funeral had just been held here. He’d never before envisioned a funeral . . .

  Concentrating, his vision of it grew more focused, more clear.

  It was Alyssa’s.

  Other Vicki Hinze Titles from Bell Bridge Books

  Novella

  Before The White Rose

  Military Romances

  Shades of Gray

  Acts of Honor

  All Due Respect

  Metaphysical Romantic Suspense

  Legend of the Mist

  Maybe This Time

  The Seascape Trilogy

  Beyond The Misty Shore

  Beside A Dreamswept Sea

  Upon A Mystic Tide

  Maybe This Time

  by

  Vicki Hinze

  Bell Bridge Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Bell Bridge Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-264-4

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-248-4

  Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 1996 by Vicki Hinze

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  A mass market edition of this book was published in1996 by Pinnacle Books, NY

  We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.

  Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover design: Debra Dixon

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Photo credits:

  Background (manipulated) © David M. Schrader | Dreamstime.com

  Locket (manipulated) © Natalia Siverina | Dreamstime.com

  Castle (manipulated) © Holger Karius | Dreamstime.com

  :Mtmt:01:

  Prologue

  Contemporary New Orleans

  THE AMULET at his neck vibrated.

  Kevan Buchannan vacillated, turned off his computer, then stared at its blank screen. Muted sounds drifted in through his office window; a blues band belting out jazz, people laughing and dancing in the French Quarter street below. Though tempted to kick back and relax, he couldn’t. Soon he’d be “gifted” with yet another glimpse of the future, a gift natural to him . . . frightening to others.

  But not to Alyssa.

  A dull pain lodged in his chest. Had it really only been three days since they’d argued over her refusal to marry him? It seemed forever.

  He stared at his desk lamp’s distorted reflection in the computer screen. They’d been good together. Better than good. How could he understand her reasoning? How could any man? She wouldn’t make a lousy wife. And she wasn’t just his lover. She was also his love. His . . . love.

  The woman was driving him insane.

  Again the amulet vibrated at the hollow of his throat. After months of waiting and wondering when the next vision would come, when he would again image the Elder, it was finally time.

  Kevan closeted his thoughts until his pulse leveled, until the tick of his office clock grew to a steady thump inside his head. Then he opened his mind to the vision.

  The ticking sound faded.

  The vision started.

  Surrounded by darkness, he stood alone. A slight wind ruffled his hair and breezed lazily across his skin. On the horizon, light flickered and gnarled fingers of mist swirled together, thickening to fog and descending on him.

  As a boy, how many times had he imagined a giant face behind him, mouth puckered, cheeks hollowed, sucking at the fog until it engulfed him?

  When the familiar cool mist gathered on his skin, he lifted his face to it. Maybe here he would find peace–if there was any.

  The fog parted, revealing the bumpy stone path. He walked down to its end. When the fog merged into a solid wall in front of him, he stopped and waited, feeling hollow, empty, and alone–emotions he wouldn’t have recognized before Alyssa came into his life. He’d loved her. He still loved her. He always would.

  A low hum sounded. The fog retreated to the horizon then weakened to misty trails that disappeared.

  Cold rain soaked his jacket. Kevan squinted, helping his eyes to adjust. Pale moonlight streaked through a lattice fence, casting weak shadows on the ground. Beyond the fence, tombs blackened with mold and cracked by age stretched up toward the sky like unwelcoming sentries.

  Hesitant, he followe
d the weed-ridden path and entered the crumbling cemetery, then followed the scent of roses to a freshly dug grave. An uneasy shiver crept up his spine. A funeral had just been held here. He’d never before envisioned a funeral . . .

  Concentrating, his vision of it grew more focused, more clear.

  It was Alyssa’s funeral.

  Holding a black umbrella, Kevan stood alone beside her rain-swept grave, staring at the gaping black hole, at the lone spray of thorny white roses stripped naked of leaves. Heavy raindrops pelted his umbrella and pinged off her silver coffin, now suddenly inside the hole.

  Sensing movement, he looked left. Two men in black, hooded coats appeared near a sagging gate, their chins dipped low, obscuring their faces. Mocking the rain, a twisted oak limb stretching out over their heads ignited and burned. The fire sizzled. Crackled and hissed. Its bright flames licked at the bark, the leaves, and glinted on something shiny in the men’s hands. What were they carrying?

  Treading to Alyssa’s grave, they made sucking sounds with their shoes in the mud. They carried shovels. “Good evening,” Kevan said. Golden shovels.

  They moved past him without a word or a glance. Why were they ignoring him? Others encountered in his visions conversed openly. And why were they hiding their faces?

  The men stabbed their tools into the mound of wet dirt, then dumped mud onto Alyssa’s coffin. The clods splattered, then thunked hollowly. And with each clump that fell, the pain searing Kevan’s chest intensified. His breathing shallowed. His pulse thrummed. He tried to look away and couldn’t. Adrenaline, terror, regret, gushed through his veins.

  Squeezing his eyes shut, he forced himself to accept the inevitable. He couldn’t stop the ground from swallowing her, but he couldn’t watch it. Dear God, he couldn’t . . . watch.

  The steady rain grew to a thunderous downpour. His tears, his anger at her leaving him, knotted in his throat. He lifted his collar against the icy chill seeping into his bones, and blinked, allowing himself no other release of the pain clawing holes in his stomach. He had to hold on to the pain. It was all he had left now. She didn’t love him. Why didn’t she love him?

  Lightning flashed, setting blaze to mighty oaks, to vines smothering the tombs, to rocks that logically could not burn, conjuring visions that flickered through his mind like snapshots. Alyssa, angry and spattered with mud, clinging to him even as she cursed him. Alyssa, bold and defiant, glaring down at him from the back of a white mare, a pre-tartan Scottish plaid draped across her shoulder. Alyssa, proud and challenging, standing at the altar of a candlelit church, dressed in an eighteenth-century wedding gown and about to marry an English lord she didn’t love. And then Alyssa–just as he’d seen her three days ago, when she’d refused to marry him. Beautiful, sitting in her sterile office, absorbed by the only thing capable of absorbing her: a computer.

  The storm raged to a tempest. “Leave!” A male stranger screamed inside Kevan’s mind. “Run! Hurry!”

  A violent wind whipped up. Howling through the trees, it carried a portentous warning and plastered Kevan’s eyelids shut. Panic seized his stomach and, furious because he’d yielded to panic, he clenched his jaw, shielded his eyes, and forced them to open. Immediately irritated by flying debris, they began to tear and ache.

  “You must leave!” The stranger insisted.

  An image of Kevan running down the stone path flooded his mind. Deep in his soul, he sensed eternal danger. Black and bleak and lethal. He fought the urge to heed the warning and escape before it was too late. But Alyssa was here. “No! I can’t! I won’t leave her like this!”

  The wind whistled a high-pitched shriek. Cringing, Kevan dropped the umbrella and cupped his hands over his ears to block out the sound. Rain drove into him, stinging his arms, his legs, his back. Lightning lashed at the sky; deadly streaks that ripped through the darkness, slammed into the ground, then exploded in flaming balls of fire. Heat scorched his skin. His eyes stung, his throat felt raw, and the warning voice inside his head grew deafeningly loud. Kevan bellowed. “I’m not leaving her!”

  Pain stabbed through his chest. He bent double and sank to his knees in the mud. “Do what you will!” he rasped out. “I’m not going without her!”

  An ominous whisper pierced the roaring wind. “Affix time.”

  The pain stopped as abruptly as it had started. The rain gentled to a fine mist. Gasping, drained and weak, Kevan tried to make sense of this. Affix time. Was the moment of Alyssa’s death the key to this vision?

  He mentally collected his energy, focused, then studied the image of himself beside her grave. No gray streaked his black hair, no new lines creased the skin at his eyes. The suit was one he wore often–the one he wore now–and his were the only footsteps near her grave-site.

  Her death would come soon.

  Fear slithered through his pores. The visions always had been like a jigsaw puzzle; never this simple or clear. Now he understood her refusal to marry him, but the knowing made her rejection harder to accept, not easier. Harder, and more terrifying.

  Alyssa hadn’t loved him. But she hadn’t loved anyone else. Demanding perfection in others, her pride, her lack of humility and modesty–all had rendered her incapable of loving.

  Incapable. His heart hammered, sweat slid down his temples, his ribs. Her snapshot images proved his worst fears. She hadn’t elected not to love him; she couldn’t love him! Him–or anyone else!

  He collapsed on the ground, venting the tears clogging his throat. The fear he’d worn like a shroud died. Despair replaced it. Until now, he’d hoped she would change her mind. But she hadn’t learned that love is pure, people aren’t; she couldn’t change her mind. Not now. Not ever.

  God help them both.

  Kevan bowed his head and prayed. Hopeless, fervored prayers born of grief. Alyssa couldn’t love. She was going to die never having known life’s greatest joy. To die! And there was nothing he could do . . . wait.

  Wait! He scrambled to his feet. Was that the message in this vision? That there was something he could do? He scanned the tops of the tombs, the shadows between them, and shouted, “Elder? Elder, I need guidance.”

  No answer.

  Frowning at that unexpected result, Kevan again focused on the snapshot images. But he couldn’t hold on to any of them. Instead, a new image formed. One of him as a ghostlike apparition, kneeling in a puddle beside Alyssa’s grave. A crystal amulet–different from his, more like the one the Elder wore–hung from his neck, a silver sword from his side. He touched the cold mound of dirt covering Alyssa’s coffin and whispered something he couldn’t hear. A rumbling started deep within the ground. The mound glowed, cracked and split. Alyssa rose from within the gaping hole, then followed Kevan’s apparition down a golden stone path.

  Where were they going? Kevan tried to follow, but couldn’t lift his feet. “Elder!” he called out. “Elder, where am I taking her? Why am I here?”

  Pain ravaged Kevan’s chest. In a cold sweat, he watched helplessly as the image disappeared. The pain was a signal as familiar to him as his amulet vibrating. Nothing more would be disclosed; his grace, the Elder of the Council of Perfection, was summoning.

  Kevan closed his eyes. When he again opened them, he was standing on the stone path, surrounded by dense fog. No mud sullied his hands, his clothes were dry, and no wind rustled. All was still. Silent. Reverent.

  He straightened his shoulders, responding to the summons with the respect the Elder had earned over the years, with the decorum due his visionary master of time and destiny.

  Enveloped in a shimmering silver mist, the Elder appeared on the path. The brown stones beneath his feet turned golden. Small and robed in white, he might have been seventy, or seven hundred, or seventy thousand. No telling lines marred his smooth, translucent skin and the crystal amulet at his neck glowed, but his eyes, flat and colorless, reflected no light.

  “It has been some time, Kevan.”

  “Yes, your grace.” Kevan bowed his head, crossed his chest wit
h his right hand. “It’s good to see you. Though I don’t understand the–”

  The Elder interrupted in the raspy whisper Kevan never felt certain truly had been spoken or heard. “Acknowledgement is the first step toward enlightenment.”

  “She must die, then?”

  “That depends on you.”

  “On me?” Kevan failed to keep his surprise from his voice.

  “Your love for this woman has remained steadfast throughout time.”

  Where was this leading? “Yes.”

  “But only now have you seen the vision.” His carriage regal, the Elder stepped closer, out of the mist. “Have your feelings for her changed?”

  Acid poured into Kevan’s stomach. In all their years together, the Elder never had been less cryptic or more blunt. That he was now, worried and alerted Kevan. This was no ordinary vision. “Yes, your grace, my feelings for Alyssa have changed. They’ve deepened.”

  “Even though you now are aware of her inability to love . . . ?”

  Kevan swore he’d give everything he owned if he could honestly deny that truth. “Because of her inability. She’s been denied–”

  “No.” Elder frowned. “Without acceptance, acknowledgement–”

  “Is useless.” Kevan’s stomach sank. Drawing in a shuddery breath, he squared his shoulders and met the Elder’s empty gaze. “She hasn’t yet become a universal woman.”

  Nodding, a shadow fell across the Elder’s eyes. “But she also rejected you and denied your love of value to her.” He fingered his amulet. “During the tempest, you realized that your soul was in eternal jeopardy, yet you refused to leave her.” The Elder pursed his lips. “I would know why.”

  “I love her.” A warning bell clanged in the deep recesses of his mind. The Elder had heard him call. Why hadn’t he answered? He’d always responded . . .

  The reason hit with the force of a sledge. This wasn’t about time! “Only a foolish man denies his destiny, your grace. Alyssa is mine.”